Happy 2017 We're going to have a good year, folks, regardless of anything else you hear. You can make it great. You can.
Here's what I've done to keep MY MACHINE, myself, going forward: following a passion I've had since I was a little kid.
Writing.
Writing tales of adventure.
Here's what I've done to date, as far as published and available works:
(Click on title to be brought to book store.)
Self-Published (ebook only)
A PARTING AT SUNSET
One of my first short Fantasy yarns. Saw publication in a few different anthologies way back in the day. Someone said it is very "purple prosey." Yup. Okay. I painted this one in broad swipes of color and detail and emotion.
Oh, and it is FREE.
My blind Viking mercenary, Boldolf Andersson, in his first adventure. A bit of historical fiction laced with fantasy and intrigue and an ancient Lovecraftian beast from the dark ocean depths.
This was written during the time I was writing the BEDLAM UNLEASHED material with Steven Shrewsbury so I was quite submersed in Viking and ancient history lore.
This great little yarn is only 0.99 cents USD.
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Below via various publishers (paperback and ebook)
HISTORICAL FANTASY FICTION
Staying on the epic and fantastical, heaped in historical real lands, mixed with the supernatural, turning some Fantasy tropes on their head, I bring you BEDLAM UNLEASHED. A truly epic Viking adventure featuring Erik Bedlam and his traveling companion, Alanis Johansson.
Written with larger-than-life and the very talented Steven L. Shrewsbury, if you like your adventuring big, raw and bloody action-packed, BEDLAM is for you.
This is the first book in a series of four.
Cover by the very talented Tim Holtrop
Editor: Scott Sandridge
Publisher: Seventh Star Press
(paperback and ebook)
Science Fiction
RETURN TO STRANGE HOME
If you enjoy a action-packed romp with a adventure hero from the depths of space, arriving back on Earth and finding his home not quite the way he left it...STRANGE HOME is for you.
Cover: Tim Holtrop
Editor: Julie Williams-Bonner
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing
Post-Zompocalypse Adventure
My TRANSPORT "universe" and story lines grew from a desire to write epic adventures in the very real place of my birth: Grand Rapids, Michigan. This fictional universe and characters, with some real locations peppered within, has been slapped down in a POST post-zombie apocalypse world. All the initial viral and zombie-eating-your-face insanity has come to pass and Humankind is re-building and moving forward. The Living are still here. The Undead are still here. Which group make the place a bit hellish, you can decide.
TRANSPORT
Travel with Captain Jacob Billet and crew and their 72-ton armored transport, the HURON, as they venture through West Michigan on a covert mission to bring the much-hated William Lettner back to his lake shore base of operations. The Living and Unliving dog their every step. The events outside the HURON are furious and fiery enough, however Captain Billet must maintain himself and keep his firearm from blasting what he carries within the HURON. Though Lettner doesn't realize it, he is being transported across the land by a angst-filled soldier, Billet, who knows Lettner is responsible for the horrible death of the Captain's wife and young son.
Cover: Jason C Conley
Editor: Rodney Carlstrom
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Seventh Star Press
TRANSPORT: HUNT FOR THE FALLEN
Captain Billet and crew must pursue a rogue tank commander and his 68-ton very deadly Abrams through the flooded wasteland of West Michigan. With communications down, a group of local Undead washed downstream and wanted by the city (and possible unsavory people) and Billet struggling with some form of ailment, can a Heavy Transport Vehicle with a 25mm gun survive against a Main Battle Tank with a 120mm cannon ta boot?
Heavy duty action and adventure awaits.
Cover: Jason C Conley
Editor: Rodney Carlstrom
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Seventh Star Press
After a "heart attack," Captain Billet comes out a coma to find the world more upside down than when he fell prey to his ailing body. Mercenaries hired by a corrupt city official have infiltrated Grand Rapids and the city's military outfit. The said-corrupt city official has gone AWOL and run to a small town, Reganshire, governed by a tyrannical overseer and his insane and partially Undead daughter. The Grand Rapids mayor is on his way back from lake shore trade negotiations and is targeted to die. And William Lettner seemingly has come back to life to dog Billet's every step as the good captain tries to derail all of the above.
An epic conclusion to a epic series.
L. Andrew Cooper of Horrific Scribblings: "...a fascinating sign of where zombie narrative, road narrative, and narrative in general might be moving."
Cover: Jason C Conley
Editor: Scott Sandridge
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Seventh Star Press
On the heels of TRANSPORT comes a stand-alone character, JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER...
RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
Joe Cross is a Urban Salvage Engineer, a collector of items and resources from the wastelands outside barricaded cities and towns and villas in the post-zompoc lands of West Michigan. In this first story, Joe Cross and his traveling companion, the stuffed toy bear ALBERT, run afoul of Reganshire, ruled by a tyrannical overseer, Silas Regan, and his insane and partially Undead daughter, Rebecca. Joe will have to prove his worth to survive in this upside-down world and his mantra as being: the best salvager in the Midwest.
Cover: Peter Welmerink / Jordan Richardson
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing
Galloping from the pages of TRANSPORT into Joe Cross's world, Joe will find himself pitted against a mechanized thug and his henchman, a Reganshire scout hellbent on finding his colleague, and a massive mutated experiment-gone-wrong of the bovine variety stomping through the wilderness...and a small group of dangerous Feral zombies ta boot.
Never a dull day for Joe and his fuzzy brown traveling companion, Albert.
Editor: Scott Sandridge
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing
Short Adventure Stories of Horror and Intrigue
in a fictional West Michigan
Join a young woman haunted by faces of her past, fighting a future she is no longer sure she wants to be part of in the title story: Faces in Perdition. Find out why you don't want to be out near the destroyed Valley State University genetics campus on a dark and stormy night in Revenge of the Roadkill. In a alt-history America after the Korean War find out the fate of Humankind and what rests 900 feet below Lake Michigan's surface in the haunting and powerful Signal in the Distance. Find strength and courage in a young man fighting for his city, his life and the fate of his sister and her young son as final night falls across the land in the nail-biting Final Rights.
Editors: Various
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing
An Anthology of Awesome Authors
The Middletown Apocalypse series is on its second book. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to write a story for the second anthology that has some very talented authors and very awesome stories between its covers.
The premise of the anthology: the setting, events and characters are very close to being the same, but it is each author's voice and how they take the gist of the pre-prescribed tale to make the book a truly interesting and entertaining piece.
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I write adventure.
And will continue to do so.
Thank you for reading, and stay tuned...there is definitely more to come.
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Peter Welmerink writes action-adventure tales, thrown into different genres: Horror, SciFi, etc. But at their heart, they are about Humankind facing some sort of hurtle, and trying to overcome it. His first collaborative novel, BEDLAM UNLEASHED, with Steven Shrewsbury, is available via Seventh Star Press in 2016. TRANSPORT is his first solo novel series, and JOE CROSS, via Peninsulam Publishing, is a standalone character from that “universe.” He’s written, and is continuing to write, high-octane adventure stories and books related to the area he lives and loves: Grand Rapids and West Michigan. He is married with a small barbarian horde of three boys.
